An article in the February edition of Wired magazine has several comments about the use of maps of the real-world in game development. True Crimes: Streets of LA: “producers used satellite imagery, GPS and geological surveys to re-create 240 square miles of the city to scale” Spider-Man 2: “consulted piles of references, including Auto Club maps and city zoning charts” As a new entrant to world of game design (on the business side of things), I was wondering: How often are maps of the real world used for game creation versus developers just going out and collecting their own data (e.g. do people use AAA, Rand McNally or Mapquest maps in their design work)? There are many quotes now-a-days about games being “like you were there” and PGRs/GT2 quotes like “photo realistic”, but this article has the first quotes on people actually using real-world maps in the design. Have you seen any other references to people building games off of real-world maps like this? If yes, please post a link or a reference.

Soul Ride
Project Gotham Racing
Project Gotham Racing 2
Midtown Madness
Midtown Madness 2
Midtown Madness 3
(You get the trend...)

Nobody would use AAA, Rand McNally or Mapquest - Mapquest?! - data because they''re so low resolution. There are government surveys and other geographical, geological and meteorological services that possess this data, both public (and thus free) and private.

I recently read about a game designer obsessively taking measurements of a real world location to feature in his game. Can''t remember the designer or the project.

I put money on that game being Big Rigs

Big Rigs sounds like a trucking game. I don''t think that was it.

quote: Original post by Zanthos
I put money on that game being Big Rigs

i hear they modelled the trucks 100% accurately as well (down to the micrometer)...

True Crime was amazing...I actually did use mapquest to get directions to the staples center...which was right where it should be.

quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Soul Ride
Project Gotham Racing
Project Gotham Racing 2
Midtown Madness
Midtown Madness 2
Midtown Madness 3
(You get the trend...)

Nobody would use AAA, Rand McNally or Mapquest - Mapquest?! - data because they're so low resolution. There are government surveys and other geographical, geological and meteorological services that possess this data, both public (and thus free) and private.

I recently read about a game designer obsessively taking measurements of a real world location to feature in his game. Can't remember the designer or the project.

The Gov sources are either TIGER data or ortho quads both of which have major problems, as I worked in the GIS industry for a number of years. TIGER data is drastically wrong becuase of the inclusion of way to many bogus roads, inaccurate road positioning, lack of road/area attributes, etc. Many of the orth quads (the higher zoom print maps available from the Gov.) are more than 20 years old and therefore suffer from lack of any new roads/areas added since their creation and are only as accurate as the technology of that time allowed them to be.

If TIGER data or quads were accurate, that's what all of the navigation products and GIS companies would use, but they don't. These companies all buy data from private sources.

As far as being able to use newer Gov data, most of the government entities are using private data and are not allowed to provide this data for commercial use. So where would the data come from.

Obviously, there is a huge amount of digital photos and current video that must be gathered as part of the development process, but that is used for other aspects of the project (more graphics than positions, etc.).

Note: AAA and Rand McNally both have neighborhood maps that are 5 feet x 8 feet, not just the entire state on a small fold out map.

My question came out of comments from the developers of the soon to come Spider-Man 2 and several older games (e.g. MS Flight Sim, Grand Turismo, etc.) that say they use these types of real-world maps. I'd really like to see some more references and/or clarification, but it is really hard to do google searches for "maps games AAA or auto club" and find anything close to relevant.

[edited by - bulldog232 on February 3, 2004 5:36:37 PM]

Of course we''ve been using this stuff in flight sims for ages. Some sources we''ve used in the past include:

USGS DOQs
Digital Chart of the World
NIMA''s CIB
C/ADRG
GeoTIFFs (various sources)
DAFIF (Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File)
DFAD (not widely available to the public)

You''re right on the money when you said most of the Govt data ain''t so hot (at least the stuff we can get). Private industry has eclipsed what NIMA was supposed to have achieved, and NIMA laments this as well.

For our military work, we get piles of incredible imagery and data (sub-meter color data is pretty available now.) As you know, however, this stuff is big bucks.

Depending on your application, I think one of the most interesting things to do would be pursue the sources of data that the GPS companies use. This stuff is probably very expensive, but if you can offer some comarketing, they may cut you a deal.

Naturally, there is also a big difference between street-level vector data and aerial/satellite photoimagery. If I needed to build a street-level world today, I''d probably use high-res phototexture as a backdrop and create actual buildings/features with Multigen or Max. I don''t know if we''re quite to the point where you could autogenerate the level of detail demanded by today''s games. (At street-level anyway.)

A buddy of mine got about 80% of the college campus into a Quake III map before he graduated, and never finished the project. It was painstakingly precise, and he had spent days taking laser measurements with fancy engineer-type tools to build it. There were actually three guys working on it, but it never happened. I saw some early shots, and they were very good, even though there weren''t any textures or anything.

The appeal of that sort of thing is obvious. I''d like to see my po-dunk town in a game. taking cover in the library, sprinting down that little drainage alley behind the Presbyterian Church, setting up automated gun in the Dairy Mart parking lot, and of course that subterranean tunnel under Lake Street where we used to catch crayfish, until the raccoons scared the bejeezus out of us.

I don''t think it''s done often, but it''s certainly a good idea, if the cost isn''t prohibitive. True Crime''s maps of LA are very impressive, second only to the Big Rigs maps of magical shoeboxes for fidelity. Actually, Kawasaki ATV was almost as good as Big Rigs.

In any event, it''s probably going to be seen more now that the hardware and mapping techniques are becomming more refined. After all, if you invent a city, you have to work almost as hard to design it as you would have to work to just map an existing one, and real cities always have more character.

You know, there is an awful lot of topography out there in CAD 3D files in zillions of surveyor company''s offices. I''ve often wondered if those could be used, or had drawbacks in them that would not make them useful.

Anybody know?

Addy